PBS Salmon Video This film investigates the parallel stories of collapsing Pacific salmon populations and how biologists and engineers have become instruments in audacious experiments to replicate every stage of the fish’s life cycle. Each of our desperate efforts to save salmon has involved replacing their natural cycle of reproduction and death with a radically manipulated life history. Our once great runs of salmon are now conceived in laboratories, raised in tanks, driven in trucks, and farmed in pens. Here we go beyond the ongoing debate over how to save an endangered species. In its exposure of a wildly creative, hopelessly complex, and stunningly expensive approach to managing salmon, the film reveals one of the most ambitious plans ever conceived for taking the reins of the planet.
Atlantic salmon are truly magnificent fish. They ooze power and strength as they make the spectacular leaps up raging rivers to their spawning grounds. They are accomplished navigators too, able to return to the exact spot they were born from thousands of miles away. Unlike their Pacific cousins, many Atlantic salmon survive the spawning season and return to the sea, possibly repeating the arduous migration three times in a lifetime. Out at sea, they stay in the surface waters, venturing no deeper than 10 metres down. Their diet consists of other fish, squid and shrimp.
Vancouver Watershed Washington
PBS Salmon Video
This film investigates the parallel stories of collapsing Pacific salmon populations and how biologists and engineers have become instruments in audacious experiments to replicate every stage of the fish’s life cycle. Each of our desperate efforts to save salmon has involved replacing their natural cycle of reproduction and death with a radically manipulated life history. Our once great runs of salmon are now conceived in laboratories, raised in tanks, driven in trucks, and farmed in pens. Here we go beyond the ongoing debate over how to save an endangered species. In its exposure of a wildly creative, hopelessly complex, and stunningly expensive approach to managing salmon, the film reveals one of the most ambitious plans ever conceived for taking the reins of the planet.
Life Cycle of a Salmon
Atlantic Salmon
Atlantic salmon are truly magnificent fish. They ooze power and strength as they make the spectacular leaps up raging rivers to their spawning grounds. They are accomplished navigators too, able to return to the exact spot they were born from thousands of miles away. Unlike their Pacific cousins, many Atlantic salmon survive the spawning season and return to the sea, possibly repeating the arduous migration three times in a lifetime. Out at sea, they stay in the surface waters, venturing no deeper than 10 metres down. Their diet consists of other fish, squid and shrimp.